Justification:
The species is widespread and reasonably common, with a total population estimated in 1999 at more than 150,000 individuals. However, it is suspected to be close to meeting Vulnerable under criterion A2 and A4, past and ongoing decline of 20-25% over 3 generations (19 years) starting in 2008, and based on intensive levels of poaching and snaring, and reported site extirpations. Its long-term survival will depend on effective protection of key areas in the equatorial forest and savanna woodland zones of West and Central Africa, as national parks and equivalent reserves and effectively managed hunting zones.

The Yellow-backed Duiker has the widest distribution of the forest duikers, ranging from south-western Senegal through West Africa to south-western South Sudan and south-west Uganda, east to the Albertine Rift and south to north-central Angola and Zambia; they also occur in the Mau forest in south-west Kenya (Kingdon and Lahm 2013). They are now considered extinct in The Gambia (East 1999), although whether they actually ever formerly occurred is uncertain (Grubb et al. 1998). They were thought to have been extirpated from Rwanda (East 1999), but have been confirmed as surviving in the Nyungwe Forest (F. Mulindahabi and A. Vedder pers. comm. in Kingdon and Lahm 2013). Now considered rare in Senegal, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda and over much of the periphery of the range (Kingdon and Lahm 2013, and references therein).

Recent presence in Chad is unconfirmed (Kingdon and Lahm 2013) and in Uganda the only confirmed site is Bwindi Impenetrable Forest (East 1999).

East (1999) produced a total population estimate of about 160,000 individuals, based on a density of 1.0/km2 where they were common and 0.1/km2 elsewhere. recorded densities range form 0.9 to 2.1/km2 (Kingdon and Lahm 2013).

The population trend is generally decreasing, except for some areas where hunting pressures are low because of low human populations and/or effective protection against poaching.

The species was formerly subject to strict taboos that once protected it in some parts of its range, and it is still considered a non-preferred game species in some areas. In Gabon, where it is also believed to be a 'were-animal', 17% of 144 villagers sampled declared it to be non-edible (Lahm 2002). However, the Yellow-backed Duiker is now declining over most of its range due to intensive and unregulated hunting and the disappearance of taboos.

In much of its range, especially outside protected areas, it has been reduced to low numbers or eliminated by forest destruction, and encroachment of human settlements, coupled with uncontrolled hunting for bushmeat.